Smart bombs: Dueling agendas

Now that congressional Democrats have dropped their demand for timetables from their war-funding bill, members of the Iraqi Parliament might as well take that two-month summer vacation that had U.S. leaders so furious.

If you recall, Parliament leaders noted a couple of weeks ago that they planned on adjourning in July and returning in September to tackle the thorny issues that keep U.S. troops fighting and dying every day. Of course, insurgents, terrorists and other purveyors of violence will work right through the summer.

Lee Hamilton, co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, told Congress in January, “What is lacking, I believe, in the administration’s approach is holding Iraqi leaders to specific benchmarks and to specific dates of performance.”

Here we are four months later, with no meaningful benchmarks, no deadlines and Iraq’s leaders possibly recessing before making any progress on matters of importance to the United States. If you think that assessment is unduly pessimistic, consider a recent week at Parliament, which Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent Liz Sly called typical:

“Tuesday – Didn’t meet because of an electrical blackout.

“Wednesday – Absorbed by a debate over whether to sue the Al-Jazeera network for allegedly insulting the top Shiite leader.

“Thursday – Adjourned after 30 minutes when some members took offense to a speech blaming them for the nation’s violence.

Meanwhile, U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians continue to die, and the administration pleads with Congress and the American people to withhold judgment until Gen. David Petraeus delivers a “progress report” in September.

The cold calculus of this mess was summed up neatly by Shiite lawmaker Jalaluddin Sagheer: “America’s agenda is not our agenda.”

Those words ought to ring in the ears of every U.S. politician who calls deadlines “surrender dates.” It’s for folks like him that we’re losing thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars, with no end in sight.

If Iraq won’t stand up, we ought to stand down.

No surge in accountability. President Bush’s aversion to benchmarks and timetables in Iraq stand in contrast to his unyielding fetish for those when it comes to the No Child Left Behind Act. Imagine if the war were run like NCLB.

Can’t meet the Average Yearly Progress guidelines? Sorry, you’re a failure. Show great progress in most – but not all – areas? Still a failure. Continue to miss that all-or-nothing benchmark? Sorry, you lose your funding.

The Bush administration says NCLB is a necessary accountability tool. How are we to know schools are improving without it? Funny how that rationale doesn’t apply to the war.